Stanley Family Gets Custody Back of 4 Youngest Children – 3 Older Children Still in State Custody

A review hear­ing in Gar­land Coun­ty Juve­nile Court in Arkansas yes­ter­day result­ed in the case being closed for the four younger Stan­ley chil­dren. The par­ents now have full cus­tody back of these four chil­dren. The three old­er Stan­ley chil­dren, how­ev­er, remain in State cus­tody. They are allowed to live at home with 20 hours a week DHS super­vi­sion in the home. (Read the orig­i­nal sto­ry here.)

Mar­ci Smith of the Arkansas Her­ald inter­viewed both the family’s attor­ney and the par­ents out­side the cour­t­house.

Watch these 3 reports here:

The family’s attor­ney, Q. Byrum Hurst, Jr., stat­ed that he was con­fi­dent that the entire case could be closed “with­in a rea­son­able peri­od of time.”

Attorney Speaks out on State Coerced Education and Counseling as a Condition for Getting Children Back

To obtain cus­tody back of their four youngest chil­dren, the par­ents, Hal and Michelle Stan­ley, had to under­go exten­sive “train­ing” and “coun­sel­ing” by the State, and allow them to enter their home at will dur­ing that time. The State-man­dat­ed “train­ing” and “coun­sel­ing” was about par­ent­ing skills, in spite of the fact that the par­ents have been home­school­ing their chil­dren for many years.

When asked if he thought the inten­sive train­ing and coun­sel­ing require­ments imposed by the State was deserved and help­ful, Attor­ney Hurst replied:

No, I don’t think it was deserved. It was done for the pur­pos­es of get­ting their chil­dren back. It is a shame that they had to do that.

Every­body can use edu­ca­tion, every­body can use sug­ges­tions on how to raise your chil­dren, but to have it forced on you, I don’t think it is ben­e­fi­cial.

Parents Disappointed that State Control Over Family to Continue

Mar­ci Smith inter­viewed the par­ents exit­ing the cour­t­house, and Hal Stan­ley, the father, expressed his dis­ap­point­ment that the State was to main­tain cus­tody of their 3 old­er chil­dren.

I am real­ly dis­ap­point­ed. I was expect­ing all the chil­dren to be returned to our cus­tody. There’s still no charges against us, there’s still no rea­son for the chil­dren to be in their cus­tody. We feel as par­ents we can make deci­sions (about our chil­dren) bet­ter than DHS can.

Michelle Stan­ley expressed her appre­ci­a­tion that at least the chil­dren were home, and they were able to spend Mother’s Day togeth­er. She post­ed pic­tures on the Bringth­es­tanleykid­shome Face­book Page.

Michelle issued her own per­son­al state­ment as well:

Greet­ings to all our friends and loved ones,

Today was our review hear­ing and as it turned out the judge ruled that we now have full cus­tody over our 4 youngest chil­dren. The old­er 3 chil­dren have not fin­ished their 60 day in home tri­al vis­it. They want­ed to wait for the 60 day tri­al vis­it to end suc­cess­ful­ly before giv­ing us cus­tody of the old­er 3. Their 60 days ends on June 15 or 16 but the court decid­ed it would be will­ing to enter­tain an order to close the case before then should the two ther­a­pist that are see­ing our fam­i­ly rec­om­mend it. Until then all the ser­vices will con­tin­ue and anoth­er court review hear­ing is sched­uled for July 1st should our case still be open at that time. We are hop­ing it will end before then and that there will be no more court dates and the soon­er ser­vices end the soon­er we can get on with our lives.

On a more per­son­al basis we are hap­py all of our chil­dren are home and we are now in the process of prepar­ing for the new lit­tle one to arrive, the due date being May 30th. We are real­ly stretched thin with all that is going on to keep things func­tion­ing but we accept the chal­lenge and are doing all we can to make things work and be ready for the baby when it comes. The Lord con­tin­ues to keep us and meet our needs on a dai­ly basis and we don’t take for grant­ed all the prayers that are being prayed for us. We give God the glo­ry and pray for his will to be done in our lives.

Love,
Michelle

Citizens in Arkansas are Enraged – Speak Out

Mar­ci Smith inter­viewed Nan­cy Emmons from Arkansas who has been fol­low­ing the Stan­ley case.

The peo­ple of Arkansas, we real­ly need to wake up and lis­ten to what has hap­pened to the Stan­leys. Nev­er in our wildest dreams would we have fig­ured that some­body could come in the night and take your chil­dren away from you.

I want you to know that this fam­i­ly is a won­der­ful fam­i­ly. They’re self suf­fi­cient, they home­school, they grow their own food, they are just real­ly self-suf­fi­cient. This has been very stress­ful for the par­ents and the chil­dren.

I want Arkansas to under­stand – every­one of you need to lis­ten: It could hap­pen to you.

Agenda 21 News Ceases Publication

Freedom Advocates, publisher of Agenda 21 News, has decided to cease further publication of Agenda 21 News posts. This discontinuation of the Agenda 21 News Digest takes effect immediately. Agenda21News.com will remain live for at least a month, so that those who would like to review or download articles can do so.

We would like to acknowledge the fine work performed by Katherine Lehman in editing the publication for the last year.

We encourage readers to become aware of two other Agenda 21 related websites to provide you with regular Agenda 21 news inputs:

Thank you for your interest in Agenda 21 News.

Agenda 21 — Sustainable Development

To help keep you up-to-date on the transformation, Agenda21News delivers relevant news and information. You will see concrete examples and explanations of Sustainable Development and its many faces - Smart Growth, Regionalism, Charter Schools, Common Core, ICLEI, the Wildlands Network, Public-Private Partnerships, and much more.

In summary, Sustainable Development seeks (1) the abolition of private property; (2) "global citizenship” with allegiance to a tyrannical system; (3) complete top down control utilizing technology (technocracy) and neighborhood snitches; and (4) to create discordance within the human population.